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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

A Good Day For Wisconsin

...and the rest of us. We're not quite Greece, yet.

Much has been made of President Obama's avoidance of the Wisconsin campaign despite his presence in neighboring states (Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois) in the days leading up to the election. Most see this as an unconscionable abdication of his role as the party leader - failing to support a colleague involved in a vital electoral contest with national implications. And most explain it as a political risk Obama was unwilling to take given his questionable (to put it charitably) persuasive skills.
There is another possible explanation for Obama's no-show. That is, he needs Scott Walker to continue his successful rehabilitation of the Wisconsin economy. As Steve Hayes (Weekly Standard) explained -
"Walker turned a $3.6 billion deficit into a $154 million surplus. Unemployment is down. So are property taxes...it's hard to imagine a more successful 16 months as governor."
And it's not just Walker. Obama needs Chris Christie in New Jersey, Bob McDonnell in Virginia, John Kasich in Ohio, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, Rick Perry in Texas, and Mitch Daniels in Indiana. (I omit Rick Snyder of Michigan from this elite group because of his leftist-like, counterproductive imposition of an income tax on private pensions). It is these (and the twenty plus other) Republican governors who are preventing the U.S. economy from collapsing under the weight of Obama's profligate spending, regulatory morass, crony capitalism, class warfare, anti-business bias, impending tax increases, looming Sibeliuscare.... The governors are, ironically, his best hope for re-election.

The best line concerning the Wisconsin recall election came from Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, "This is what democracy looks like." This refers to the chant of squatters protesting Walker at the state capitol building last year, which in turn was co-opted from the title of the Noam Chomsky film documenting the Seattle anti-globalization riots in 1999.